Monday, February 15, 2012

L10? - Feb 15

1medieval warm period - "medieval climatic optimum"¶

-- anasazi (southwest US) experienced a cool period when europe experienced warm period.
-- -- 600-900 AD prime, at 900 experienced droughts, had to leave area
-- vikings
-- -- expansion from homeland to iceland, greenland, north american
-- -- boat technology
-- -- when landed in iceland, it was forested from shore to mountains
-- -- -- by 2000, only 2% has trees, in 60 years of settlement, vikings had cleared almost everything
-- -- greenland, only 2 settlements, both gone by around 1450
-- -- -- what is the lesson? vikings died because they didn't have good relationships with the inuits
-- -- tip of newfoundland
-- -- -- seasonal settlement
-- -- -- animals kept inside houses
-- swedes
-- -- made it to rusia and to caspian

2little ice age¶

2.1timing¶

-- right after warm period, tons of people living there
-- little ice age: 1350-1850
-- Maunder Minimum: 1645-1715 (time of reduced sunspots)
-- -- coldest time period

2.2rivers¶

-- Frost fair on the River Thames (1607-1814), river in england through england, froze over
-- Washington crosses the Delaware river (december 25-26, 1776)
-- -- famous painting
-- -- chunks of ice, took 26 hrs to cross river
-- Hudson river frozen - people can walk from Manhattan to Staten Island
-- -- right at the mouth of ocean, salt water freezes colder than fresh, the river is brackish
-- -- about a mile long

2.3war¶

-- spanish armada - 1588
-- -- spanish tried to invade england
-- -- spanish were going to graveling across from england, to pick up some soldiers, but they didn't
-- -- english blocked the channel, spanish were forced to sail around the top of the UK, lost most of their fleet in that journey
-- napoleon
-- -- 600,000 soldiers from france to russia
-- -- when retreated from moscow, maybe 130,000. by the time they returned, only a few thousand left (from bad weather)
-- -- outside of horses were frozen
-- -- weather winning the war
-- american revolution
-- -- washington surprised the english on xmas
-- french revolution
-- -- french didn't adapt when the weather changed
-- -- french wanted their bread, grain, cereal, not potatoes
-- -- the clergy referred to potatoes as the devil's plant

2.4farming/agriculture¶

-- diversification of agricultural crops
-- -- small holdings agriculture
-- -- much wider variety, farming economy, more trading
-- -- plants were more resistant to cold, wet, and dry
-- modern farming economy
-- -- growing things to sell, not just to subsist
-- potato famine
-- -- 6,000,000 in ireland relied on a single kind of potato
-- -- 1,000,000 died, 1,000,000 left
-- -- went to USA

2.5music¶

-- stradivarius violin - unique sound (antonio stradivari, 1644-1737, maunder minimum: 1645 - 1715)
-- -- chemists: varnish
-- -- swedes: geometry/shape
-- -- climatologists: dense wood
-- -- -- wood grown during maunder minimum, coldest time, trees don't grow much, slight growth, tree rings much closer together, denser wood

2.6beer¶

-- immigrants of america - about 45-60 latitude of europe
-- in medieval warm period, england made wine, exported it to france
-- vines now are 300 miles south of where they were in medieval warm period
-- english, irish, scots, germans, dutch, swedes, poles, were the first to come to US. they brought 200 yrs of beer + hard liquor
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